I'm going to try to respond to things directed at me, and/or other things that are worthy. If I miss something I apologize, and if you really want a response, please bring it up again.

superdude wrote:

Have you ever seen anything good come from homosexuality, abortion or unmarried sex? No. Nothing but problems.

Yes, I have seen lots of good come from homosexuality and unmarried sex. Broadly... "happiness" and "love".

And yes, there are instances when even abortion is benefitial to involved parties (if the baby would have birth defects, or if the mother was raped and/or the pregnancy threatens her life), though I intentionally omitted abortion because I understand the opposing side and it is extremely valid. So I would like to avoid debating this here in this thread... and I will concede to any points you want to make regarding abortion.

Let me flip this around on you. What "problems" are you referring to that came from homosexuality? I can't think of a single one.

@disch Galileo was hindered by the Catholic church which has always listened to tradition rather than God

I've been meaning to speak of religiosity as a whole and not specifically about Christianity, though I have been explicitly saying Christianity, which is erroneous on my part. I apologize.

Superdude wrote:

Scientific development was not at all hindered by Christianity. It mostly helped

I have already come up with 2 examples of where scientific progress was impeded by religious impositions. Can you please give me an example of where religious beliefs contributed to scientific discovery in a positive way? I'm not aware of any such instances.

Technological development? What does that have anything to do with religion??

Scientific and Technological development go hand in hand. You can't impact one without impacting the other.

cppprogrammer wrote:

@Disch Just because homosexuality is common doesn't mean it is not weird.

I guess that depends on how you define "weird". I'm thinking you meant it as "abnormal". Given the rate of homosexuality and general sexual behaviors in humanity and nature, I would not call it abnormal.

But again it's all subjective. I don't think it's weird. And neither would you if you weren't raised to.

God says that homosexuality is evil.

Deuteronomy says it's an abomination. It actually says that about a lot of things... including tattoos and piercings. But this goes back to "Is the Bible really the direct word of God or is it Man's interpretation?". I'm going to avoid commenting on this further, and I believe cire has already covered it significantly well. Until his point about the genesis contradiction is retorted I see no reason to discuss this further.

--- While I was typing this... superdude responded with his retort ---

I'll have to reread those parts of Genesis before commenting further. Or maybe cire can cover it? I would prefer it if he did, honestly, as this is a tangent to the original point I was trying to make (which I fear may be lost forever).

EDIT: forgot this one:

superdude wrote:

Social development has crashed since the huge loosening of morals in society.

Examples?

I think society has come a long way in terms of equality and the way we treat each other in general. We've certainly come a long way from treating women and people of color as property.

Then in Gen. 2, it says God formed man out of dust.
God planted a garden for him to live in.

Well, the first part is right. The second part is not. This is your blow-by-blow explanation?

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

And it goes on to say, yes, God created a garden for them to live in. But it's fairly clear that prior to God forming a man from the dust of the ground, that "no shrub had yet appeared" and "no plant had yet sprung up" which is a direct contradiction to the order of events enumerated in the first chapter.

If you want to believe/undertand it you will.

Yes. And if you want to pay attention to what you're reading, you will.

@Superdude you're right...
About the works/faith
I am saved by faith, but my works show I love God James is saying
We must have works if we do not it doesn't mean we aren't saved
it means that works are to help us grow not to save us
it means it is our duty because
Christ saved us all we can do is serve him

@cire what translation are you using I have a kjv and it says
"4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the Heavens.
5: And every plant of the field before it was the earth,...
I'm not going to finish it but you can find it...
I don't mean to be rude but one way or another we'll find out who's right

A missionary comes across an isolated Eskimo tribe.
He teaches them Christ's teachings. He also tells them that they must accept Christ as their Lord and savior to be saved.
A local man approaches the missionary, confused.

Eskimo: "So if we reject Christ we will not be saved?"
Missionary: "Yes."
Eskimo: "But if we accept him, we will be saved?"
Missionary: "Yes."
Eskimo: "My parents are no longer with us. They were unaware of Christ and thus did not worship him. Does this mean they were not saved?"
Missionary: "No, Christ saved them. They did not reject Christ, they were just not aware of him. It is not their fault."
Eskimo: "So if I was unaware of Christ, I would be saved?"
Missionary: "Yes."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me about him?"

5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Which means the same thing. "Before the plants/herbs were in the ground... "

But, according to superdude, this is the word of God, and man doesn't have anything to do with the interpretation or writing of it since it is inspired by God and infallible, so obviously it is unimportant which version or translation you use.

Humans inspired by God don't make mistakes, you know?

[Edit: And just to make this clear this is one of many contradictions and erroneous statements.]

That's your opinion. What you find weird is not necessarily weird to someone else.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/shroder/040221

Reading that article made my brain hemmorage, and it has no actual references. Do you have any peer-reviewed scientific journals with *actual evidence and experiments* that back up your claims or are you just going to keep linking conservative christian blog-hate-spam? 3 of the footnotes don't even work, and the other one is just a link to yet another christian blog-hate-spam article.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed FRI as an anti-gay hate group[4] because of Cameron's discredited research[7][8] and claims about LGBT people. According to the SPLC, Cameron's "continued demonization of LGBT people and the shoddy and suspect research methods he uses to advance his claims have earned his Family Research Institute (FRI) a place on the SPLC’s anti-LGBT hate group list."

lol

Regarding "Facts About Youth" from the American Academy of Perdiatrics: http://www2.aap.org/featured/sexualorientation.htm

How do you know carbon dating is correct? Were you there or do you know of anybody who was?

Wouldn't matter.

We know because we can do experiments on things we already know the ages of. We've done this over and over again, and have refined our methods.

We don't use carbon dating to date the age of the Earth anyway, we use Uranium-lead dating which we've done enough verifiable experiments to show over and over to be accurate to be within 1%. A basic (high-school level) understanding of how the half-life of radioactive isotopes works is enough to accept the accuracy of this dating method.

That's your opinion. What you find weird is not necessarily weird to someone else.

I know that, gays don't think its weird.

Wouldn't matter.

We know because we can do experiments on things we already know the ages of. We've done this over and over again, and have refined our methods.

We don't use carbon dating to date the age of the Earth anyway, we use Uranium-lead dating which we've done enough verifiable experiments to show over and over to be accurate to be within 1%. A basic (high-school level) understanding of how the half-life of radioactive isotopes works is enough to accept the accuracy of this dating method.

That dating stuff may be right. I never said it wasn't. Just there is no actual proof.

Religion is a very boring and useless topic to argue because it is by nature something you believe in without proof.

My issue with the big bang theory is that people take it too far. I once participated in a discussion about it on physics forums, and what I got out of it, was that there is a big difference between what the actual modern theory says, and what pop science says. Mainly, what is really known is that the known universe seams to be expanding. The primordial atom idea is just a fairly wild speculation based on what we think we know. I am highly convinced that the mainstream has it wrong when they try to create a complete explanation of the universe.

Man has been trying to solve the mysteries of the universe for thousands of years. It's as if we must explain everything; like we are afraid of what we don't know. This is probably why most of the world is religious. And there are thousands of religions. Math and observation give us some better tools to make better guesses, but ultimately we are still largely clueless. Never the less, many people think modern cosmology is something to believe in. It's just a decent attempt at guessing about things we are largely in the dark about. If you believe it believe it, then it's not that different from religion in a way.

What I wish I could know, is wether the universe is finite or infinite (counting universe as everything that exists), and how either answer would work/make sense.

I believe the world is on a giant turtle, however it is not only on its back, its a really round and fat turtle, and the world is on its stomach as well. we have never noticed the turtle because all of the rockets being launched scared it and it now hides in its shell.

In a way, yes, the people that performed the experiments about the big bang theory, etc. may have come up with something that makes sense doesn't make it true.

The difference, is that there was never a claim that it was true; this is the common misconception, that modern cosmology is a bunch of statements of fact. The theory is just an ambitious attempt to come up with the best explanation. It's inevitable that the attempt will not be completely successful. Most cosmologists know this, and are willing to move on when someone finds a flaw, or comes up with a better explanation. Often people can end up with a little too much faith in a theory and will fight to the bitter end to hold on to it; even scientists do this, but it's considered a personal flaw; one that we all seam to be susceptible to, to varying degrees.

There not just claims. That is what the Bible says, so we know it is true.

Off topic: Just noticed how many posts I have done on this topic. I started with (I think) 318 post now I am up to 374, I think this post will make that. And, I have only done 3 or 4 or 5 post in other topics :O.